Border plants are beautiful when placed near edges such as walkways , driveways and the edges of a patio.  They are typically a perennial or annual border that are combined with flowering plants.  They are also beautiful used in island plantings that break up a large expanse of lawn area.

If you are using any of these in your borders, add some flowers for contrast.  But if you really want to go all the way with your edibles, then you could add any of the edible flowers which I will be covering soon.

Luckily this list has common items that will be easy to find at places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery or your own local nurseries too.  But never fear, I’m still working on the more unusual ones for you still!

Shrubs are often used as foundation plants but they can also be beautiful next to a walkway, driveway or even near trees.   Combine them with a variety of different types and colors and combine them with other border plants and ground covers to make a truly striking display.

Some of these are difficult plants to find.  But I am still working on sourcing them out for you so that if you want them, you will know where to find them. You can try places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery that will ship right to your door {my favorite in this time crunched world of mine!} or your own local nurseries too.

Foundation plants help soften the sharp angles and edges of houses or other types of structures.  They could be any combination of shrubs, small trees or large perennials.  But lest you think I’m all about all edible plants all the time, {it’s true, I usually am} I can recognize that sometimes an evergreen thrown in here and there will help give the yard some form and interest in the wintertime.   Ok and flowers too, though not in the wintertime.   Combining your edible foundation plants with a few evergreens or flowers will make this area of your yard very nice.

Try your hand at any of these for your foundation plantings:

So try places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery for the more common items and geesh, I’m still looking for good sources for some of the others.    Don’t worry I will shout it from the mountain tops when I find them!  Or hey, if you know a good source, please let me know!

Last time I posted some lists that had dwarf and genetic dwarf varieties listed.   As we get into more of the edible landscape elements, some of these will become more and more important.

The terms really confused me when I first ran into them.  And I wondered what the differences were, and did they really matter? If I needed a genetic dwarf cherry, could I get away with planting a regular ol’ cherry?  {Um, the answer to that would be  no!}

So what are the differences?

Well obviously as the names imply they are shorter than a regular version of the same tree.   The differences lay however in their rootstocks.  A dwarf tree is a tree that is grafted onto a dwarfing rootstock which restricts the trees growth while a genetic dwarf was simply born to be short and doesn’t need to be grafted onto a rootstock to make it that way.

Dwarf and genetic dwarf trees can come in a range of sizes from some small enough to live in pots, clear up to semi-dwarfs that can end up being about 2/3 the size of a regular sized tree.  So getting one that is the right size for what you need will be important.  Even though dwarf trees are smaller, they still will give you regular sized fruits just not as many as on a full sized tree.

Now if you want to get really technical, you can learn about the different types of dwarf rootstocks which for me, just started making my head spin.   So if you are curious, just let me know and I will try to wrap my head around these a little more and post about them.  For now, I will just trust that the nurseries will know what I’m talking about and be able to help me find the right one.  I hope to have a nice little list of places that sell dwarf and genetic dwarfs for you soon!

Hedges are another area that are easy to replace with edibles.  They are great if you would like to define a border of the yard, increase your privacy or as a barrier.  Depending on the desired effect you can either choose from plants that are pruned into specific and defined shapes that tend to lend themselves to a more formal look, or you can choose from a more informal looking hedge that is only lightly trimmed so that its natural shape is kept.

Here are a few that lend themselves to a more formally trimmed hedge:

For a more informal or natural looking hedge, try any of these:

Sometimes you might want a really dense hedge that will be nearly impossible to get through, not even for your sneaky dog who wants to escape.  These types are typically very dense and compact and sometimes thorny depending on which type you choose.

If you want a thorny hedge, try any of these options:

Or for something very dense, but thornless, consider using any of these:

So did you notice some unique things about these lists?  We are getting into dwarf and genetic dwarf varieties.  The more common dwarf varieties you can usually find at  places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery that will ship right to your door or your own local nurseries. But sometimes a dwarf or genetic dwarf variety are much harder to find and these are what I’m trying to find for you so we know some good places to get them from.

I just found this stinking cute Rabbit Faucet while browsing around today.  How fun would this be as an Easter gift for your favorite gardener?  They had several other animals to choose from if you didn’t want a rabbit.

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled posts on edible landscaping!  There is another one on the way tomorrow!

You might have an unsightly view you would love to block, or would like to harness the summer breeze across the patio or keep the harsh winter winds from battering the house, if so, then you want something that will work as a screen or a windbreak.  In order to do this you will want to plant a tree or shrub that grows quite  large with dense foliage.

If you need a smaller screen, you will want to refer to the Hedges elements that I will be posting soon.  But if you want to add any of these,  try places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery that will ship right to your door {always nice in my busy book!} or your own local nurseries.

Coming up in the next few days or weeks we will be getting into some more unusual edible plants that I’m pretty excited about!  But  I am still trying to find sources for these in case you’re interested in adding them to your own yards so stay tuned!

I mentioned pine trees as a large edible tree  the other day.  Some of  you may be wondering, “Huh? How do I eat a pine tree?”.  Well, that’s what my kids would say at least.  But we won’t actually be eating pine needles or anything, but pine nuts ~ the expensive little delicacy used in pestos and other  delicious goodies.

The thing is, if you have a pine tree, you may already have pine nuts that you never even knew about!  And you will definitely be lucky if you already have a pine tree because if you need to plant one then don’t count on having any pine nuts for a good 10-20 years.

But don’t fret if you don’t have one.  Most people don’t know that they may  be growing pine nuts and if you knocked on their door to ask if you could harvest and clean up their pinecones, they would probably be thrilled that they don’t have to pick them up themselves!

Here is how to harvest them:

1. Harvest them in the fall when the pinecones aren’t quite open.
2. Place them in large paper bags in a nice cozy warm spot inside.
3. Wait until they open and drop their nuts into the bag.
4. Shell the nuts.
5. Lightly roast them.
6. Store the nuts in airtight containers.
7. Freeze any you want to keep for longer than 4-6 weeks.

Now not all types of pine trees will give you pine nuts, so try and get any of these species of pine trees below,  you might want to check around at your local nursery to see what types grow in your area but I have heard that the following species are good ones to try:

There you go!  A gourmet food source you may not have even known you had!

Remember, these are species of trees, not actual varieties.  So if you find a variety that you like that works well in your area that is among one of these species, then you’re good to go!  Let me know if you want me to dig up their actual fancy names for you.   You can try places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery that will ship right to your door or your own local nurseries. Coming up in the next few days or weeks we will be getting into some more unusual edible plants that I am trying to find sources for in case you’re interested in adding them to your own yards so stay tuned!

Of course when we think of edible landscaping we think of fruit trees.  But there are more than just fruit trees.  Often times the humble little nut trees are overlooked but can be very valuable to your garden.   And yet when figuring out what to plant and where to plant it, there is much to be considered in this area.

Street Trees

I love a tree lined street.  There’s just something so good and down home about it.  When choosing a tree near the street you want to be sure you are choosing a variety that has deep roots so as not to destroy the road or concrete, and one that has a high branching growth so that it isn’t taking out cars and pedestrians as they pass by.  Another consideration is to be sure not to choose ones with juicy fruits because we certainly don’t want anyone to slip on freshly fallen juiciness either!  Ok, and we probably don’t want sticky, juicy things falling on our cars either.

The following are good trees to plant near streets:

Look for smog sensitive varieties.

Lawn Trees

Sometimes it is nice to have a tree in the lawn, but you want one that won’t compete with your grassy lawn for moisture and fertilizer and won’t be injured by disease if the lawn mower or trimmer accidentally nicks them.   Most fruit trees really aren’t that suitable for planting in lawns, because they can’t handle the aforementioned conditions.  Not to say that they can’t be planted in the lawn, because my parents have a bunch in their front lawn that did just fine, just that they won’t perform quite as well.   Plus you will want one that provides enough light to pass through so that grass will still grow beneath them.  So that leaves you these choices:

Large Trees

For some refreshing summer shade, or something for a real stately feel you will want to use a large tree that can grow to at least 30 feet.   You can plant trees such as:

You can get most of these from places like Gurney’s Seed and Nursery and Henry Fields Seed and Nursery or your own local nurseries.  Coming up in the next few days or weeks we will be getting into some more unusual edible plants that I am trying to find sources for  in case you’re interested in adding them to your own yards.

With the encouragement of a lot of people, I have decided to move my blog over to my very own domain. It’s exciting and since I’m not very technical, it took me a while to figure out.

I will still be going over what is going on in my own little humble garden, but people close to me have also been encouraging me to share more of my ideas {because I’m always coming up with them, or running across new ideas}, resources and things that I come across so that others can benefit from the knowledge too. And since food production is very important to me, I thought that was a very good idea!

Since I’m not too technical though I don’t think very many of my previous posts will be transferred over to the new blog. I will just keep going from where we were at instead of loading all my old posts over there. But I will still keep this one here in case you ever want to refer back to any of them.

So come on over and check out my new blog at ThePotagerGarden.com .

I’ve been helping my brother try to come up with ideas for a garden at his house.  However, they don’t have a huge yard {as seen above}and definitely don’t have room for a square plot or a more elaborate potager design.  Because their yard is so shallow in front as well as in back, it looks like we will try to replace some of the foundation  plants and trees with more edible versions.

He lives on a corner and this side actually is the best spot we could find for a garden area.  But I think the front areas among the rocks will be a good spot for a few things too.  We will keep you updated as we progress.

Since I know many of us are still planning and figuring out our gardens and before I get too hog wild with my new garden planning software designs that I want to come up with for you, I thought I would post a series on edible landscaping in case any of you are contemplating replacing some of your ornamental plants with ones that will actually give you food to eat.

So stay tuned!

It’s March already!  Yikes!  Where has the time gone???

It is time to kick it into high gear and finish up the garden plans, or start your garden planning,  if you haven’t already.

This year I decided to use an online garden planning software program.  I’m currently trying to figure out what I want to plant this year.  I’ve been so busy lately that it looks like I most likely won’t be planting a spring garden.  But I’ve been playing around with the software coming up with fun ideas for the summer garden!  That’s the fun part for me!    It’s the actual hard work of weeding in the hot sun, and having bugs surprise me that I’m not too fond of.

Some of the things I’m thinking about for this years garden while I’m planning {and playing with the new software} is:

• What herbs do I use the most and where can I grow them in my yard?
• Which root vegetables for winter storage do I want to grow?  Do I have room to grow them or do I need to find somewhere else, like a community garden plot where I can grow them?
• Will I be planting cool weather veggies?  What types and do I have enough time to get them started still?
• Do I need to fix anything in my yard to make my food production better, like removing trees?

So hopefully I will have a finished plan {or two or three!} to show you soon !

If you want to try out the software on your own, check it out here at PlanGarden.  It’s pretty cool!

If you don’t have a lot of room to devote to an elaborate potager design, yet still want to grow your own food an edible landscape might be the way you’d like to go.   This type of garden design is a great choice if you would like to maintain a more homogenous yard design that blends in with the typical suburban neighborhood.

With this type of garden, we will take the same basic landscaping ideas but replace  the ornamental plants with edible ones.   For instance for our foundation plantings, instead of an average bush perhaps we would choose a blueberry bush.  There are plenty of edible plants we  can use as hedges or shrubs.   Or if we needed a windbreak, maybe we could plant a large nut tree instead. Need a groundcover?  Why not go with thyme, chamomile or strawberries?

The world of edible landscaping is “ripe” with possibilities and I’m excited to “dig” into these here.